If you've ever seen How It's Made, or the bits they'd show in Mister Rogers' Neighborhood where they show you a factory line:

I was thinking it'd be cool to see a feature length one of these. Instead of showing just one factory, it'd start at the raw materials being excavated from the Earth and then follow them all the way to the final product.

I think the success of this would hinge on them picking a really goddamn good narrator.

Should I start engraving images of my ponysona in rocks, a medium that'll hopefully last longer than digital files and cheap notecards?

How about engraving a cryptic nonesense message on stones, digging it in over the globe in a geometric pattern, and confusing future archaeologists.
And if you combine all stones they reveal the real message: "You are dumb!"

"The knack of flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss." - Douglas Adams

I'm not sure which Brad Bird style this was supposed to refer to. He had this really detailed style and he also had this other style that was kind of abstract and angular, almost cubist. Both of them were more detailed and less cutesy than this new beanface style.

I think Calarts is the wrong word for it. Nonetheless I do think the critics have a point in that western mainstream cartoons seem to be homogenising their style to this particular style when, in the past, there was a greater diversity of styles. It's not a huge problem, though. The shows look good and most are good to watch, it's just something to mention under "what could we do differently?"

Don't listen to critics, though. The same people who are now praising the 2011 Thundercats for its style compared to the new beanface style are the people who were criticising that 2011 Thundercats style, particularly when it was used in all of ATLA, for being a western "imitation" of anime.

The bean face style is cute and it looks good. Pointing out that a show uses beanface isn't really an adequate criticism of any particular show itself, just something to highlight a wide trend in animation at the moment. Saying "I'd like to see more styles being used in animation" is different to saying "this show sucks because it uses a particular style". I want to argue the former and reject the latter.

Another criticism off the back of this is the argument that, from what we've seen of the style and animation, they appear to be going for a light hearted comical tone for a story which used to be an epic action sci fi story. For that I want to hold off until I've seen the final product. When you look at Gravity Falls, Steven Universe and Adventure Time you see that shows which appear to be lolrandom and comical can actually get very touching, action packed and epic in their tone. Just because the cats have beanfaces and make silly jokes from the outset doesn't mean that the show will just be lolrandom cutesy trash.

In fact, daring to be comical allows the audience to relate to the character and enjoy the happy moments in the show, which prevent it from becoming dark and edgy. To explain what I mean by that, imagine Steven Universe but without Steven, Amethyst, Peridot or any moment that provides comic relief. Instead of being a story about love you'd have a story about the horrors of war.

In fact, daring to be comical allows the audience to relate to the character and enjoy the happy moments in the show, which prevent it from becoming dark and edgy. To explain what I mean by that, imagine Steven Universe but without Steven, Amethyst, Peridot or any moment that provides comic relief. Instead of being a story about love you'd have a story about the horrors of war.

I want to go further and say that being comical like this isn't inherently tied with the beanface style. If you go back to ATLA, which shares a visual style with the 2011 Thundercats, you'll see what I mean. Sokka is a goofball, the Avatar is a young boy who occasionally cracks fart jokes and even Zuko, the closest thing to an edgelord in the show, attempts a joke at one point. Then you get on to Iroh, who starts off as a lazy fatso comic relief character, but steadily becomes one of the most profound and heartfelt characters in all of animation. If they had gone straight in with "I marched my son to his death in war" it would have been edgy, but because they started with drinking tea and us getting to know him through his lazing around in a jacuzzi it allows us to enjoy the ups that invest us in the character and allow us to love him through his downs.

So to conclude my rant over three posts, I don't want to dismiss a show for its style or for it including comedy from the outset.

Not a fan of the beanface but tolerate it because I know its cheap and easy to animate.

There's a certain irony in Thundercats being 'the straw that broke the camel's back' on beanface though, considering it was one of a number of cookie-cutter 'lumpy he-men/ G.I. Joe' low animation action shows that saturated the 1980's.

I expect Thundercats roar to be garbage not because of the beanface but because Thundercats is garbage. The 2011 show was well animated but it was trying to take a goofy 80's cartoon show and make it serious. I couldn't help rolling my eyes every time they tried to make Mumm-ra menancing.

Also: The new She-Ra reboot will also be bad unless its camp.

Let me explain
This ugliness, this cruelty, this repulsiveness;
It will all die out

One problem with reboots is that, contrary to popular belief, the original show as it was released is not the source material. The thoughts, inspirations and reference materials of the creators of the original at the time of the making of the original are the source material, and those are probably lost. Because of this, you'll never be able to make the exact same show again.

The important thing is that this is perfectly fine. It's the ability to reinvent an old series with new ideas which keeps it alive, but to do this you need to ignore the internet critics who will leap at the first chance to say "this doesn't reflect the source material!" It doesn't always work, though. Batman and Scooby Doo are full of examples of this both working and not working at various times.

Batman brings me on to another point. I've been arguing thus far that this show may turn out to be heartfelt, action packed or epic in spite of the hints of comedic styling we're seeing. With Batman you can also open another possibility. Sometimes taking an action packed and dark story, then turning it into an off-the-wall parody of itself, can work well. Maybe this could be Adam West's Thundercats?

It's all speculation at this point, but I want to give this show a chance to be something good instead of leaping at the chance to shit on it. There's so many good things that it might turn out to be.

Agreed, also I'm stoked for that She-Ra reboot because the original show had some surprising bits of depth and story to it that He-Man didn't and a show with an actual budget and skill could actually realize that stuff, as opposed to Filmation

Transformers is a decent example of reboots leading to better quality. G1 is the stereotypical 1980s toy commercial and is ridiculously bad campy schlock (although that’s why I enjoy watching it and laughing at it ). Beast Wars took ideas from it, but was its own far superior thing, especially in seasons 2 and 3. The animation hasn’t aged well at all, but the stories and characterizations are still mostly good.

An equally good example of Batman as comedy leading to excellent results is Batman: The Brave and the Bold